Public Health Approaches to Incarceration

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Public health methodologies, institutions, and interventions offer a unique contribution to incarceration research and policy. Many individuals who become incarcerated are involved with multiple health and social service institutions, which often have few linkages and create a disjointed system for those they serve. Other incarcerated individuals are disconnected from community organizations, and experience physical and mental health problems that go undiagnosed. Public health offers unique approaches to mitigating these risks and promoting protective factors against criminal justice involvement. Many predictors of incarceration mirror the social determinants of adverse health outcomes. As a multidisciplinary field addressing both biological and social determinants of health throughout the life course, public health is well-suited to integrate the complex system of factors with the potential to divert individuals from offending behavior, to improve the wellbeing of incarcerated individuals, to reduce the collateral consequences of incarceration for families and communities, and to reduce barriers to successful re-entry. This panel includes three papers demonstrating public health approaches to incarceration: quantitative research examining gene-environment interactions as determinants of child behavior, ethnographic research examining the health consequences of incarceration and community supervision for the families of those in the system, and a qualitative analysis of determinants of successful re-entry.

Sub Unit

• Area IV. Criminal Justice Policy and Practice / 41. Prisons and Jails

Individual Presentations

• Children’s Genetic Sensitivity to Effects of Paternal Incarceration - Amanda Geller, Columbia University; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University; Irwin Garfinkel, Columbia University; Sara McLanahan, Princeton University; Colter Mitchell, University of Michigan; Daniel Notterman, Pennsylvania State University

• My Brother’s Keeper – and Doctor, and Social Worker: The Repercussive Effects of Incarceration on Family Health and Well-being - Megan Comfort, RTI International

• Developing the Reentry Anonymous (R/A) steps to successful community reintegration in New York City - Pamela Valera, Columbia University; Ramon Semorile, Bronx Community Solutions, Bronx, New York; Cary Grant, Striver House, Bronx, NY

Chair

• Amanda Geller, Columbia University

Discussant

• John MacDonald, University of Pennsylvania